The phrase “self-made man” is well known. It is does not refer to men living as Crusoe, or men without friends or families.
But just in case this is the first time you have read the phrase, it refer to the difference between the European system of every success being the product of a client being loyal to a patron, who rewards that loyalty with benevolence in the form of wealth or land.
The client in all he says and does lauds and gives all credit to his patron; and if this client is patron in turn over underlings beholden to him, he expects the same honor and deference from them. The client is allowed to complain about no injury or imposition at the hands of his patron: he owes him.
The Mafia brought this system over intact from the Old Country, which is why in crime dramas, we see the behavior of the powerful helping the weak in return for lifelong fealty.
Political corruption operates by a similar system. In the rural county where I got my start in the newspaper business, the older families formed the ‘Good Old Boys’ who helped each other out, and granted patronage to land developers or bankers or newsmen, and would hand them success, and, in return, these fawning clients would never rock the boat.
Something more unamerican cannot be imagined. This nation honors, not the fawning loyalty of toadlickers, but the innovation and hard work of the industrious, and each man is held equal to the other. The poor man in his hovel is his own master there, just as much as the rich man in his mansion, and what he has is his, not a gift from the high-born hand he must kiss.
And this corrupt system of patron and client loyalty has nothing to do with family bonds, and nothing to do with faith in heaven.
